Chapter 279 The Diligent Emperor Used as Cannon Fodder (Part 4) Nangong Rou reads…
Nangong Rou looked at Chunyu and tentatively asked, "In this palace, are there any cases of concubines making mistakes and being punished?"
Chunyu then revealed a puzzled expression, “Why are you suddenly asking this? Our Emperor is magnanimous and rarely punishes the ladies in the palace.”
If there was any, it was three months ago, when two concubines almost got into a fight at the Empress's place over a batch of satin. Each was punished by having to copy the palace rules three times.
Nangong Rou was completely bewildered. "Fighting? Punishment by copying palace rules?"
According to the palace intrigue novels she read in her later life, a mistake of this scale would at least warrant a three-year stay in the cold palace, or at least twenty strokes of the cane.
She tentatively voiced her thoughts, which greatly shocked Chunyu, who now trembled even without acting.
"Let alone palace concubines having a dispute, even if a maid in a wealthy family with a little bit of standing gets into a fight, the priority is to appease her, not to use a rod."
Chunyu thought about the Nangong family and assumed they were from a humble background, deliberately trying to scare the child who wanted to enter the palace. She comforted her a few times before passing the message on to the Emperor and waiting for further instructions.
Lin You didn't need to remind her; Nangong Rou quickly learned that the only concubine in the palace who could be considered to be in the cold palace was moved to a remote palace because her father was implicated in the serious crime of treason.
As for being beaten with a cane and forced to kneel, no concubine in the imperial harem has ever been beaten with a cane since the founding of the dynasty.
There was never a time when a concubine was forced to kneel outside as punishment. There was only one instance when a concubine offended the Empress Dowager and was punished by being sent to a small Buddhist hall, where she knelt on a prayer mat and copied Buddhist scriptures for an hour.
Nangong Rou tried her best to filter out the plots from the novels and TV dramas she had read, such as kneeling for a whole day, being slapped, and being beaten dozens of times, from her mind.
When she tentatively asked about her previous dancing and whether she would be punished, Chunyu couldn't help but laugh: "Your Highness is His Majesty's woman. You just wanted to get close to His Majesty and please him. How could you be punished?"
Dancing was nothing compared to the wishing tree that the emperor had laughed at for so long; it was probably not worth mentioning either. Nangong Rou felt relieved, clapped her hands, and happily went to eat her snacks.
And you know what? The pastries from the imperial kitchen taste much better than the cakes she buys in modern times. They're made with all-natural, additive-free, healthy ingredients. In modern times, they would cost tens of dollars each, but now she can eat her fill.
Because there weren't many concubines in the palace, Nangong Rou, although only a Noble Lady, lived alone, albeit in a side hall.
Even if it's a side hall, it's still a house in the palace, much more comfortable than the one she rented in modern times. There are also personal maids to serve her and people to clean it.
Apart from checking in with the Empress every morning and checking in with the Empress Dowager on the first and fifteenth of each month, she was basically free to move around at other times.
You can stay indoors embroidering and reading, or you can go out and stroll through the Imperial Garden. The meals are delicious every day, and if you get bored, there are maids to cheer you up.
As Nangong Rou became increasingly pleased with being coaxed, the system had fewer and fewer ways to manipulate its host. Soon, it abandoned its passive-aggressive tactics and began vying for Chunyu's favor.
Lin You maintained her mysterious identity and did not show herself. While monitoring Nangong Rou's side, she was also looking for where the other subsystem was hiding.
Despite following the emperor to court and strolling through the harem every day, she couldn't find a single suspicious person. Wasn't the subsystem supposed to be by the emperor's side as well? Surely the host wasn't too incompetent and hadn't completed the prerequisite tasks yet?
Subsystems don't bind to hosts randomly. Take Nangong Rou, for example. Not only is her dancing unparalleled, but she's also incredibly popular with the opposite sex, having had a constant stream of suitors since childhood, and she exudes a captivating aura.
Li Tianle, who was chosen by the subsystem to travel through time, is no ordinary person. He is actually a history enthusiast and a well-known handicraft expert online.
For example, he can make soap, lipstick, glass, refined salt, etc. by hand, and even make penicillin by hand. When Subsystem 2 was first bound, he felt like he had found a great treasure.
But no one told him that there could be someone who wasn't interested in becoming a high-ranking official and only wanted to be a seventh-rank compiler in the Hanlin Academy.
The place where Li Tianle lived was a residence allocated by the imperial court to officials who did not have houses. It was a small courtyard with three rooms, a storage room, and a kitchen. He also bought a servant to be responsible for cleaning and cooking.
This kind of life would be considered quite difficult by other officials, but Li Tianle always enjoyed it.
Who can understand the joy of having a company dormitory in the capital city, with its own private courtyard, three bedrooms, two living rooms, and a small garden, bathed in sunshine every day!
Who can understand the joy of having a 24-hour live-in nanny, where a lifetime contract only costs one month's salary, and all you have to do is provide food and give her pocket money for the rest of the time!
Who could understand the joy of working part-time, where students' parents not only don't complain, but also pay high hourly rates, and students dare not misbehave, but even admire and respect him?
Who could understand that if he wanted to buy a house, he could simply work hard at part-time jobs and save up for a year to buy a courtyard house in a slightly outlying area?
When he first moved to Beijing, his five-figure monthly salary only allowed him to live in a basement apartment that could barely fit a bed, and he had to go to a public restroom to use the toilet.
Forget about finding a nanny, he even struggles to wash his own clothes and hang them to dry. During his university years, he encountered many bizarre things while working part-time, which is just a painful memory.
As for housing, with his salary, after deducting daily expenses and rent, even if he saved for ten years, he could only barely afford a small apartment of a dozen square meters in a remote area.
Anyway, he's an orphan with no parents, so it doesn't matter where he works. The benefits here are so good, he can manage even without cell phone or internet access.
After all, since the 996 work schedule started, he hasn't had much time to look at his phone or play games. Besides, there are other ways to pass the time here.
Li Tianle only needed to choose a small teahouse with a reasonable average price, spend ten coins to order a pot of tea and two plates of dried fruit, and he could sit there and listen to storytelling or singing for several hours.
The waiters here are very respectful and greet you with smiles. The storytellers' ventriloquism and the singers' musical skills are comparable to those of artists.
Or if you want to see something better, you can go to a famous opera troupe to listen to a performance by a famous actor for a few hundred coins. Even if you have an ordinary seat, you can still see the stage clearly and hear everything perfectly.
Just as Li Tianle was becoming more and more accustomed to ancient life, Subsystem 2 finally couldn't take it anymore.
[With your attitude of "you only care about yourself and not the rest of the family," what will you do after you get married and have children? You couldn't even find a girlfriend in modern times, you can't possibly be a single dog in ancient times either!]
"Who told you I was going to get married and have children? In ancient times, even breaking the law could implicate nine generations of your family. I've managed to transmigrate into an orphan, so I'm not subject to anyone else's nine generations of family entanglement."
"Why would I bother finding myself a wife? It just adds a bunch of risks, not to mention I need in-laws who can make decisions for me. Do I look like I'm crazy?"
Subsystem 2's attempts to persuade failed, and it remained speechless.
According to the risk assessment, the host's statement is indeed reasonable, and even a system like it cannot predict this kind of uncontrollability.
After all, there are so many people in the nine clans. If just one of them succeeds in exterminating the entire nine clans, they can wipe out everyone. Who knows if one of them might suddenly get drunk and write a rebellious poem cursing the emperor?
After shutting down the system again, Li Tianle gave himself a mental thumbs-up and leisurely went to his part-time job with his hands in his pockets.
He currently has three students, all of whom study at the same academy. After school, they come to his courtyard together for tutoring.
The three students' grades were not very good; according to the academy's classification, they could only be considered to be in the lower middle range. However, they all had a very good attitude towards learning, and they completed all the assigned homework and test papers very seriously.
Most importantly, they are not mischievous or disruptive, do not daydream during class, are respectful to the teacher, and proactively move their small table to the study every day upon arrival, returning the table and chair to their original positions without being told before leaving.
She's practically the perfect student in every tutor's eyes!!
Subsystem 2 couldn't stand his naive and unsophisticated attitude, and couldn't help but start complaining again:
You still have the original owner's memories, don't you know how he went to school when he was a child? Don't you know that you can't learn without being disciplined? You need to be stricter to manage your students.
With their level of stupidity, is it really worth praising them for finishing their homework? Praising them just for not making any spelling mistakes? Are you a thumbs-up machine? This isn't your modern world; if homework isn't finished, the teacher can use a ruler!
Listening to the system's boastful sense of superiority, Li Tianle chuckled sarcastically: "So that's how you learned all those corporal punishments in your missions. Only incompetent people would use punishing others to boost their own sense of superiority."
"The items and rewards in your shop aren't very good, but you're putting on a really high-class act. Are you one of those defective products from the system? Otherwise, how come you don't have a single high-quality item?"
Subsystem 2 was so angry that it emitted a crackling sound, and it didn't react for a while. Li Tianle waited until he finished teaching the students and encouraged them one by one before turning back to ask it:
"It must feel bad to be called incompetent, right? You can't even handle your own system, so how dare you ask me to give my students a repressive education? Besides, they paid for it."
Subsystem 2 finally managed to adjust its state, but stubbornly refused to admit it.
【I didn't have any problem, my signal was just bad for a moment, it's not like you can make me short-circuit!】
"Oh~" Li Tianle suddenly realized, and just as the system thought it had gotten away with it and breathed a sigh of relief, it heard him continue:
"A system that can even travel through time and space has a bad signal? Could it be that I was right and you really are a defective product? Or is it that I predicted it before and you're feeling guilty, so you're pretending to have a short circuit?"
In the end, isn't it still a defective product?! But he can't refute or prove it, which only makes him seem more guilty.
Subsystem 2 shut up completely, pretending that it had gone offline, and decided not to say a word to this guy until it found a way to get Li Tianle to do the main quest!
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